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My first attempt at light-painting a single reasonably-large object; a vintage Redex dispenser. I'm attempting to emulate the style of "the master" of sculpting with light Harold Ross (Rossstudio).
I have a lot to learn. The lighting is definitely not as even as I wanted and the background was painted too dark and was a nightmare to illuminate. I'll have another go in a few days. It's time-consuming, but worth the effort!
Another light-painting attempt; my wife very kindly bought me a box of gourds for my birthday!
Although not really in the style of US fine-art photographer Harold Ross (I wouldn't be so presumptuous), I'm definitely inspired by him ([https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossstudio]). It's a challenging technique, but I'm certainly enjoying trying to master it.
Long-exposure photo taken last night by Harold Ross at the Guerilla Drive-In. We showed snobs-versus-slobs summer-camp movie "Meatballs" at local snobs-versus-slobs canoe-rental venue Northbrook Canoe Company.
Ezekiel C. "Zeke" Hubbard, who runs Northbrook, IS Tripper Harrison, about thirty years older. Listen: Northbrook was started in 1977, Meatballs (a movie about camp North Star) was released in 1979 -- hey, you do the math. Ivan Reitman _was_ on the east coast at about that time...
Anyhow, since it was showering a little bit, we showed the movie in the canoe barn, hanging a seventies polyester curtain on the mostly-closed rolling door. The rain on the corrugated tin roof was really nice.
You can see the sidecar-mounted Commando Projector, and about forty(?) folks in attendance. Hard to tell; it was dark.
My friend and neighbor Harold Ross took the photo. Thanks, Harold, I think this looks awesome! Click on his name to see more of his stuff.
You can learn more about this Guerilla Drive-In at www.guerilladrivein.com. On the West coast, there's Rico Thunder's original GDI at www.guerilladrivein.org.
This is the MacGuffin for the West Chester Guerilla Drive-In. It's an actual thing (not a photoshop composite.) It contains a kit-built AM transmitter and a Sony sports walkman with an endless loop tape, broadcasting the access code you need to complete your registration for the West Chester Guerilla Drive-In.
West Chester Guerilla Drive-In dates are announced ahead of time, but the titles and secret outdoor locations where the 16MM movies will be shown aren't announced until the day before -- and then, only announced to the folks that have found the MacGuffin and entered the access code.
Needlessly complicated? Sure! A pain in the ass? Probably! Elitist? Hell no! Anyone that's excited enough to seek out the MacGuffin is absolutely encouraged and welcome to attend Guerilla Drive-In showings. More details are available at the West Chester GDI site (as of this writing, I haven't yet posted any hints about the MacGuffin's whereabouts and the frequency to listen to, but those are coming.)
The photos were taken by my friend and neighbor Harold Ross:
Harold has an awesome studio nearby, where a single push of a button plunges the whole place into darkness, and then he opens the shutter on some kind of badass digital-backed Hasselblad and bathes the subject in the light of a fiber-optic wand. That's how he got the highlights on both sides of the antenna, for example; he waved the wand twice on either side.
The fiber-optic wand makes Important Beeping Noises while he's using it, and his cameras are attached to huge cast-iron booms to immobilize them. Basically, it's the loading dock from Aliens. With Cintiqs.
Other things of mine you might like:
The Retropod
The table was covered with these weightless little bean skins when we were done.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
Photographs shot in the studio with light painting. You can see more photos I've done this way on my site at www.haroldrossfineart.com.
I've had such a positive response and inquiries on how to create images like these that I will be giving Light Painting Workshops throughout the year. If you are interested in attending please visit my blog Harold Ross Light Painting Workshops for more details.
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Photographs shot in the studio with light painting. You can see more photos I've done this way on my site at www.haroldrossfineart.com.
Zoomable Image ( Zooms will take a moment to load )
A picture of the West Chester Guerilla Drive-In's projector rig taken by my friend, next-door-neighbor, and masterful photographer Harold Ross.
Harold uses long exposures and a fiber-optic wand to "paint" the subject of the photograph with light, so you can get highlights on every concievable surface, making this thing look like the centerfold of a 1970s BMW CINEMARAD MOVIEWAGEN brochure.
From a total layman's perspective, here's how he makes the shot (once the bike has been rolled into his studio):
Harold positions the camera using a great big rolling boom and locks it into place. He then he pushes a button and the whole studio is plunged into darkness. He picks up a big fiber-optic hose with bright light streaming out of one end, and then pulls a trigger on the end of it. THere's a big SNICK! noise as a shutter in front of the (open on long exposure) camera opens, and Harold "paints" light from the wand directly onto the subject.
While the shutter is open, there's this measured "beep beep beep", which Harold tells me is his metronome. He uses the beeps to keep track of how much light he's painted onto various parts of the subject.
There are also various attachments for the hose, like a marriage between a vacuum cleaner and a light saber. All in all, it's pretty DAMN cool to watch :)
You can see a tiled, zoomable version of this image on my blog.
Here's Eric with his hacked hot-air roaster. From what he says, this is a standard DIY coffee-roasting rig, though each person has their own variations in the design. Eric, for instance, puts all the long-lived parts in a separate box from the roaster itself, since the roaster can burn out if you do something wrong. It's loosely coupled.
Eric is also the projectionist for the Guerilla Drive-in, since he has relevant experience running the movie projector on nuclear subs. He sells his small-batch roasted coffee at www.wccoffee.com
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
Another picture of Harold's great big monitor, showing the composite capture. Harold will cut each badge off the back and put together a composite image.
This is what the image looks once the shutter on the digital back closes, before any post-processing, color correction, or lasso-ing to get the badge off the sash.
This is a closeup; the actual digital capture spans about half of the laptop lid. The capture is something like 70MB?
Harold Ross took this long-exposure picture of us watching "The Thing" by the frozen Brandywine last Saturday night.
It was our first winter Guerilla Drive-In. I had a *great* time -- but we're DEFINITELY waiting for warm weather before showing the next movie!
Here's Jerzy W., who won the GRAND PRIZE at the Guerilla Drive-In's showing of Caddyshack for best (worst) golfing outfit. In addition to this outfit's many other fine qualities, he's actually wearing a wooly tam-'o-shanter with a pom-pom on top. WINNER.
The prize? Besides a can of soup, Jerzy got to DRIVE THE ARMORED CART out on the range while moviegoers hit balls at him. He had nerves of steel, too: he drove along at low, low speed only twenty feet from the hitting decks. It was like watching some weird analogue of a pirate movie, where the privateer cruises slowly past the man-o-war, defiantly taking point-blank fire from each cannon in turn.
This photo was taken under very difficult lighting conditions by Harold Ross, who used a long exposure and some trickery with a hand-held flashlight(!) to make this look like the Weirdest Ever Catalog Shot. You can see more of Harold's stuff on his photostream.
My uncle Laird thinks it looks like we're setting up a meth lab.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
This is with the wide wand; Harold is setting up and checking the focal length. Er, at least I _think_ that's what he's checking. The wand goes up, over his shoulder, and back down to a very big, very hot metal box on the floor.
The badges are in two rows because Harold's just going for the right angle. He'll then composite a _single_ row of badges onto the sash, when he makes the final image.
This image shows the composite of laptop backs that Harold had done before I got there with the badges. He did his own MacBook with a few different kinds of light. Those images are NOT negatives; they're all just different passes with the light wand!
I tried eating one. It tasted exactly like a raw lentil.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
We took the Yama siphon brewer's stand apart, and hung it on a lighting stand above the camp stove.
The next picture shows the setup more clearly.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
Randy and I are examining the green beans like audience members examining the handcuffs before a magic act.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
The uncropped photo, after rough compositing work by Harold. We left plenty of background on, so when we use it on a web page, we'll have plenty of overflow to the left, right, and bottom, to play with.
Harold patched out the Burpee logo on the box, and tweaked the texture of the background by adding some raw plaster textures taken (of all places) at Shofuso!
Like the photos Harold took of my motorcycle and the MacGuffin, the "painting with light" technique results in an image that is sort of hyper-real. I like it because it almost looks like CG, but there's lots of texture; more than you'd get in a digital model.
You can see more of Harold's photos on his website.
You can buy a Last Call Bag for $12.00 at www.lastcallbags.com.
The chaff all around comes off the beans. The beans swell to about double their original size.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
According to various bloggers I've read, Japanese siphon-bar attendants carve the bamboo stirrer to fit their hand, then stir the coffee in the top pot EXACTLY FOUR TIMES, without touching the glass on the sides. I don't know how true that is, but I want it to be true.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
I'm not sure what the deal is with the perspective here, but it definitely looks like we're making coffee for dolls here.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.
The Yama siphon brewer holds three Japanese cups, which is the American equivalent of a single biggish mug.
It comes with a tabletop stand, but in order to get the camping stove under the pot, we took the stand apart and used some of Harold's lighting clamps instead. And we're using his Erlenmeyer flask. His studio is FILLED with awesome stuff.
Photo by the indomitable Harold Ross, reproduced with permission.